And about the time of forty years
From their coming out of Egypt, to their entrance into the land
of Canaan:
suffered he their manners in the wilderness;
which were very perverse and provoking; as their murmuring for
water, their rebellion against Moses and Aaron, their idolatry
and the ill report brought on the good land by their spies; and
yet the Lord fed them, and led them, and kept them as the apple
of his eye: some think the true reading is (etrofoforhsen) , "he bore", or "fed them", as a
nurse bears and feeds her children; and so the Syriac, Arabic,
and Ethiopic versions render it, "he nourished them"; rained
manna, and gave them quails from heaven, and furnished a table
for them in the wilderness: and indeed, though there were
instances of God's patience and forbearance with them, yet
certain it is, that as he was tempted and proved by them, so he
was grieved with them during the forty years in the wilderness;
and often let fall his vengeance upon them, by cutting off great
numbers of them; and even the carcasses of all that generation
that came out of Egypt fell in the wilderness; nor did any of
them enter into the land of Cannan, but Joshua and Caleb.